


Don't we all fall

by NegativeBlue



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, post Sympathy for De Vil fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3803128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NegativeBlue/pseuds/NegativeBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not what I did,” Emma finally admits, their eyes holding with an intensity that should scare her, but doesn’t. “It’s about how it makes me feel.” (Post Sympathy for De Vil ficlet)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't we all fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arolac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arolac/gifts).



> This is more into friendship area than relationship, but there are hints here and there about it being more. I just felt a conversation between them was warranted in the aftermath of this episode. The setting for this story is during the road-trip in 'Lily', with minor spoilers for that episode, mainly the fight between Emma and Lily that we saw in the promo.
> 
> Gifted this work to Arolac for helping, for listening/talking, always leaving reviews on my fics and for generally being a good friend.
> 
>  
> 
> Title taken from Dotan's Fall.

 

_"And the world keeps spinning around, while we dive in it  
_

_And the world is bringing us down, leaving marks on our skin."_

**Dotan - Fall**

 

* * *

 

 

Two soft taps on her door make Regina jump up from her position on the bed. Letting out a shaky breath, she removes the glasses from the bridge of her nose and takes a moment to fold them before placing them on the nightstand. Glancing at the paper in her hand, she lets it fall before swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.

 

She smoothes out the nightgown as much as she’s able to as she pads barefoot towards the door.

 

“Uh, hi,” Emma mutters as soon as she opens the door and Regina has to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

 

Emma looks nervous and weary, her eyes devoid of their usual spark. Toll of the past few weeks events and all the things that kept piling up without a moment of respite Regina thinks. It did affect her too, but it’s nothing compared to what Emma has been through lately.

 

Regina glances past Emma, flicking her eyes around the empty hotel corridor.

 

“She’s asleep.”

 

She’s not at all surprised when Emma answer the unspoken question hanging in the air.

 

“I see,” Regina mutters, crossing her arms and leaning back against the doorpost. “I trust you’ve talked things out then?”

 

“I don’t know.” Emma looks away and only now Regina notices the redness surrounding Emma’s eyes. “Can these things ever be solved by talking?” She shakes her head, a wry smile pulling the corners of her lips upwards. “We’re..better I suppose. I think that counts for something. Or at least..it should be enough for Lily not to assault my parents the moment she sees them.”

 

Regina thinks there’s something else Emma wants to say, but she doesn’t. Her lips purse to a tight line and her jaw sets, but Emma stays quiet. And in that moment Regina remembers all the times she’s seen Emma like this in the past. Trying to stay strong, trying to deal with everyone’s expectations of her. Until she buckles under the weight of the world that she keeps trying to put on her shoulders. Only then she had support from people. Only then she still trusted her parents enough to catch her if she fell. But right now there is no one else. No one but her and Emma standing in an empty hotel corridor. It dawns on Regina what the true reason for Emma to visit her this night is.

 

She doesn’t even have to ask if Emma wants to come in. Emma’s eyes flicker upwards, locking with her’s and they just breathe in the space between them. They breathe and communicate in silence and Emma smiles again. Though it is just as sad and forlorn as it had been before and Regina feels it pull at her heart.

 

Emma steps inside and she closes the door and waits. Since she knows this too. The time and space Emma needs sometimes. Cropped up feelings and unspoken words bubbling just beneath the surface of Emma’s skin. The haunted look in her eyes which Regina catches before Emma turns and walks towards the window.

 

She waits but steps closer. Though not close enough to touch. Not close enough to give the comfort she knows Emma needed more than ever. She wonders if this was perhaps the moment for them to move past that. After all they had moved past so much already, what would be one more step?

 

Still she hesitates. Emma’s shoulders are tense and she pulls away in a way that even the slightest of touch seems unwelcome. Regina swallows as she flicks her eyes towards the door. Emma’s walls are too high for her and just because it looks like she would need someone’s strength, giving it isn’t welcomed now.

 

“How do you do it?”

 

Emma’s voice is thick with emotion and it causes her stomach to drop. She sounds lost and bitter. But before Regina is able to ask for clarification Emma speaks up again.

 

“How do you move past it? I see it when I close my eyes.”

 

Regina notices the way Emma looks down at her hands. Looks and turns them over and around as if she’s looking for something.

 

“Emma..” she murmurs. She takes a step forward but stops herself before she can take more.

 

“I almost hurt Henry again.” Her voice brims with self loathing.

 

“You saved him. You didn’t have a choice.”  
  


Emma turns around so swiftly that it makes Regina draw a sharp breath and take a step backwards. “That’s bullshit and you know that as well as I do,” she hisses. “I could’ve just blasted her sideways or knocked the gun out of her hand.”

 

“If you hadn’t killed her, someone else would’ve done so. She was a psychopath, Emma, a killer who would’ve made countless more victims.”

 

“And what about you, Regina?” Emma sneers, cocking her head to the side and looking at Regina in a way that causes shivers to run down her spine. “You’ve made countless of victims in the past, haven’t you?”

 

“And I’m trying to redeem myself,” she counters. She knows better than to let herself get caught up in this. To let herself get baited into whatever trap Emma was trying to step up for her. “That word wasn’t ever in Cruella’s vocabulary. She was a ruthless killer than enjoyed watching people suffer. She would never have changed, no matter how many chances anyone would’ve given her.”

 

“So the fact she was a murderer, makes murdering her in turn okay?  
  


“It was nothing more than self defense, she had Henry at gunpoint Emma!” She shakes her head and expels a deep breath through her clenched teeth. Though Henry was shaken up by the experience, she knew he would be okay eventually. But the things he had told her had only served to increase her worry over Emma’s state of mind. And the way Emma had refused to talk about the events which took place at that cliff’s edge hadn’t assuaged that worry in the least.

 

“That isn’t what’s really bothering you is it?” Regina asks after they’ve stared at each other for a while.

 

Instead of replying, Emma turns and stares out of the window again. Even though it is dark outside and few lights across the street only offer a sparse illumination.

 

“Emma..”

 

She feels a lump in her throat when she catches Emma’s eyes in the reflection. Because in that moment Emma didn’t have any walls up. Or she no longer had the energy to do so. But the sadness that shines in them rocks her to her core. She reaches out and places a hand on Emma’s shoulder and lets it drift downwards. The gesture is more gentle than she intended and she’s unable to turn her eyes away from what she’s doing. Instead she presses onwards, until she reaches Emma’s hand. Cradling Emma’s clenched fist in her hand, she looks up again.

 

And she’s not surprised to find Emma look right back at her. Emma’s fingers unfurl and for a moment lace with Regina’s, squeezing gently before withdrawing again.

 

“It’s not what I did,” Emma finally admits, their eyes holding with an intensity that should scare her, but doesn’t. “It’s about how it makes me feel.”

 

She waits. A second. And a few more. Emma’s gaze never wavers and she wonders how long they stand there. Struggling to find the words that never form into coherent sentences.

 

“She taunted me, you know? She called my bluff because heroes don’t kill. And I..” Emma swallows audibly. “I just felt something inside me snap. In that moment I was so angry, so frustrated and I didn’t care anymore. About anything. I was so tired of it all, Regina. So tired of everything. All the lies, the expectations.”

 

“You did what anyone would’ve done under the circumstances, Emma. You shouldn’t..”

 

“Shouldn’t what?!” Emma grits out, her features contorted in anger and frustration. “Blame myself? Because that isn’t…” Her shoulders drop and she tucks her chin to her chest in an attempt to hide the tears in her eyes. “I’m scared, Regina. I’m scared because of how easy it was. How little I felt after that. I didn’t feel remorse, I didn’t even feel any of the anger I had felt before. I didn’t feel anything.”

 

“But you do now, don’t you?” She says in a soft tone. “It makes all the difference. You’re aware of the implications of your actions. You’re aware of how taking another human’s life affects you, changes you. You were protecting someone you loved. Your mother might have skewed views about the world, but you and I know both know that there are no such thing as good and evil. There is no such thing as a perfect hero or being perfectly good. Sometimes you have to cross a line. And some of us just cross it more often than others.”

 

“But it still changes you, doesn’t it?”

 

For a moment she thinks back to the first time she pulled someone’s heart from their chest. The shocked look in the woman’s eyes. The tiny gasp of surprise just before she crushed the life out of the woman’s heart. Until nothing was left but dust. She hadn’t cared back then. Perhaps she still doesn’t care now. She hadn’t know the woman, she had never bothered to find out who she was. But it had changed her. It had made things easier. She had crossed the line and there hadn’t been anyone or anything holding her back anymore.

 

It makes her all the more determined to not have the same thing happen to Emma.

 

“It does. But it only adds to who you already are.”

 

Emma gives her a puzzled look as she rubs a little at the corners of her eyes.

 

“I remember an Emma Swan that loathed me before the curse broke. I did everything I could to drive you out of town back then. And when I bruised my ankle and we were surrounded by fire, you were the one that rescued me. I still remember what you told me when we were outside again.”

 

“Because that’s what good people do,” Emma fills in. The smile that follows makes her unable to look away. Because it’s the first time in weeks she has seen Emma smile this way. Carefree and bright, without all this weighing her down.

 

“You’re still that person,” Regina says. She hesitates for a moment before stepping forward into Emma’s personal space. She extends a hand slowly but besides the deep breath and apparent confusion about what was going on, Emma doesn’t move. “In here,” she continues, placing the hand over the area where Emma’s heart is.

 

Emma’s hand comes to rest over Regina’s and she smiles.

 

“Never pegged you for being a sap,” Emma jests. And this Emma Regina knows. This Emma she has missed for these past few weeks. The playful side of her that sometimes comes out to play when there aren’t people kidnapping their son, or oversized bats chasing after them.

 

“Hmm,” she hums, “don’t tell anyone, you’ll ruin my reputation.”

 

Emma chuckles, little lights dancing in her eyes. But just as sudden Emma’s expression becomes serious again and it makes Regina wish there was a way to freeze time. Moments like this were rare nowadays and fear coils around her stomach at the thought that there might be fewer still in the future.

 

“Thank you for that.”

 

But Emma isn’t looking at her as she speaks and a few alarm bells go off in Regina’s head.

 

“Emma look at me,” she urges, relieved when Emma does so without hesitation. “Nothing I can tell you would fix things for you. Or help with whatever it is that you are feeling now. It’s not supposed to.”

 

“What will fix things?”

 

“Nothing.” She knows better than anyone what it’s like to give someone false hope. To claim that time would heal all wounds. “You’ll have to live with it. And you can,” she says as she envelops Emma’s face between both of her hands and holds Emma’s gaze. “You can because you are one of the strongest, resilient people I’ve ever met. The savior is just a title, Emma, just meaningless words. What matters is what you’ve done, what you still do. And you have people who care about you, who love you.”

 

She sees Emma’s eyes fill with tears and before she’s able to say more, Emma surges forward and wraps her arms around Regina’s body. Emma’s practically buries herself into her chest and all Regina can do is hold her and guide them both towards the bed. Sobs wrack Emma’s frame and her throat constricts as she wonders when was the last time Emma let go like this. Stopped trying to be strong against all odds and allowed herself to be human.

 

Gently she strokes her fingers through Emma’s hair as she cries against her shoulder. Wetness seeps into her nightgown but Regina doesn’t care. Her heart aches for the woman in her arms and she feels her own eyes fill with tears she desperately tries to blink back.

 

She wipes away the few that do fall and continues to hold Emma for a while more until her breathing evens out and Regina is surprised to see Emma has fallen asleep.

 

Briefly she contemplates waking her. But as she looks over Emma’s relaxed features, the puffy eyes and tear tracks etched on her face, she sighs softly. She had never counted on Emma becoming so dear to her, but here she is, sleeping in Regina’s hotel bed, on her favorite side no less. And she doesn’t have the heart to do anything about it.

 

After observing Emma for a little while more, Regina carefully removes her shoes and covers Emma’s body with the sheet. Turning off the light she crawls under the sheet herself and rolls on her side to watch Emma sleep.

 

She doubts she’ll be able to get any sleep tonight but Regina considers it a small price to pay. Reaching out, she traces Emma’s wet cheek with the pads of her fingers, careful not to disturb her.

 

She vows to talk more to Emma and keep her safe. To have her back like she trusts Emma to have her own.

 

But deep down inside there’s a niggling doubt of it being enough. There are parts of Emma that already moved beyond her reach.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  


 

  
  



End file.
